English

Noun

apparatchik ‎(plural apparatchiks or apparatchiki)

1. (historical) A member of the Soviet apparat; a Communist bureaucrat or agent. [from 20th c.]
   • 1965 February 12, “Russia: Borrowing from the Capitalists”, in Time, volume 85, ISSN 0040-781X:

     Whether conservatively toeing their Marx or boldly advocating such heretical Western-style reforms as the primacy of profits, every important planner, apparatchik and economist in Russia is caught up in Communism's greatest debate since Stalin set backward Russia on its cruel-but successful-forced march into the 20th century industrial world.

   • 2007, Roberts, Elizabeth, Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro, Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, ISBN 9780801446016, LCCN 2006048845, OL 9776170M, page 34:

     In these dire conditions the ambitious Serbo-Croatian Communist Party apparatchik Slobodan Milošević played the national card in Kosovo.

2. A blindly loyal bureaucrat. [from 20th c.]
   • 2007 April 20, “Gonzales v. Gonzales”, in The New York Times, ISSN 0362-4331:

     Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch. […] He delegated responsibility for purging their ranks to an inexperienced and incompetent assistant who, if that’s possible, was even more of a plodding apparatchik.

   • 2011 February 27, Preston, Peter, “The Unfinished Global Revolution by Mark Malloch Brown – review”, in The Observer, ISSN 0029-7712:

     He's so outspoken, so little the Labour apparatchik, that Prime Minister Brown decides he can't send this voluble critic of Iraq invasion to sit at a UN occasion alongside George W Bush.

Translations

French

Noun

apparatchik m ‎(plural apparatchiks)

1. apparatchik

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• aparatchik

Noun

apparatchik m (plural apparatchiks)

1. (historical) apparatchik (Communist bureaucrat or agent)